Heart of Steel - Meljean Brook [121]
He looked up. His eyes suddenly glistened—oh, beautiful man. She felt the smile curve her mouth, the one she could not help every time she saw him.
“Yasmeen,” he said, and his voice was as rough as hers felt. He started for her, as if to pull her into his arms, before stopping himself. “How do you feel?”
She pushed up to sitting. Her knees cracked. She froze, then let the tension out on a sigh. “I feel like I need to loosen up—and I have to piss.”
“Not at the same time, I hope.” Gently, his arms slid under her. “A whipping, I can take. But I am not quite adventurous enough for that.”
She laughed, then had to stop at the ache in her head. He lifted her against him to carry her to the privy, but halted halfway across the cabin, suddenly shaking, holding her tight.
“I love you,” he said. “Please remember that when I tell you—I have taken over your ship.”
Yasmeen stared at him. Eyes bright, jaw tense, he appeared as if he were waiting for her machete at the back of his neck. “You ordered the crew to take her out of Rabat, I hope?”
“Yes.”
“Which way have we gone?”
“North.”
“Are we completely lost? Is the navigator dead?”
His tension began to ease. “No.”
“All right, then. You have said you would back me up if needed, and you have done a perfectly fine job of it.” She pointed to the privy. “Please.”
He had her morning water heated when she was finished, the soap ready. And being injured was not so terrible at all when it was followed by Archimedes carefully washing her from head to toe, then drying her with slow strokes of a soft cloth.
Retrieving one of his shirts, he slipped it over her head, and put his arm about her waist so that they could begin to pace.
Outside the porthole lay a rolling plain covered in snow. They must have gone farther north than she’d realized. “How long has it been?” she wondered.
“Three days.”
“And Rabat?”
“The mob stopped their looting after the palace. All is quiet again, and the French fleet is leaving.”
She began to nod, then realized—“If you fled, how do you know this?”
“Ah, well. I ordered the ship south first, and then west, and then back north over the sea. And when we approached the French fleet . . .” He paused as Yasmeen choked. “We are obviously still alive.”
Alive, and Archimedes would never be so stupid to approach them without a purpose. “Why did you do it?”
“We had a French academic aboard who had been part of a recent expedition that ended in Rabat, and he was seeking safe passage back to the islands. They recognized my name, of course—”
She snorted. “Of course.”
“And when they saw the items we gathered in Brindisi, were happy to take them aboard—especially as Ollivier also knew the location of da Vinci’s clockwork man.”
Her breath left her. “You told him?”
“Well, yes. Because in a few days, he will be eager to meet another man he has heard is in their fleet, one who has possession of a da Vinci sketch . . . that Ollivier will recognize as a fake. And then that man is going to die a very natural-looking death. I made certain he knew that ‘natural-looking’ was most critical.”
Al-Amazigh. Archimedes had arranged for Ollivier to kill the man who’d ordered the slaughter of her crew, yet do it in a way that wouldn’t begin a war. And this man was hers?
Her eyes filled. “Thank you.”
“I am sorry you couldn’t do it yourself.”
“It only matters that it is done.” Finally done. It would not ease the pain of losing her crew, her lady, but the debt of their deaths had not gone unpaid. “And the French let you fly away?”
“I had a Vashon for a first mate, and this is an airship very loyal to their king. We even sport a Huguenot cross on our balloon.”
That ugly, horrible thing. “And to think I said that Guillouet was treating her like a whore for it.”
“She is definitely a lady,” he said. “Are you sure you will not keep her?”
“She is not my lady.”
“All right. We will buy another one.” He stroked her back. “Temür Agha and Nasrin are waiting for you to awake before they go.”
So soon? But it was probably